


Choices

by Sokorra



Series: The Lyrics Prompt Series [9]
Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, hopeful thoughts towards the new season
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 19:53:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6438019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sokorra/pseuds/Sokorra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On his way home from a weekend arguing with his father over the family business, Logan runs into Rory Gilmore and her daughter coming back home to Conneticut  Now he just has to decide if he's going to take the chance to fix things that went wrong 9 years ago.  Post Series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choices

**Author's Note:**

> This is an extended form of a drabble I did for the Lyric Prompt series in a writing group I belong to. So some of it might sound familar if you read Oy With the Drabbles Already.
> 
> I'm still hoping for a HEA for Rory & Logan despite some of the spoilers coming out of the new Netflix season. So I wrote this to try and write a world where ROry and Logan didn't get back together back in 2007. I may write more one-shots in this universe but nothing is planned so far. Hope you enjoy.

I saw you walking in the street, don't look this way love please   
Just let my heart, let it go   
Take me back to that day, you turned and walked away   
And said it's supposed to be this way   
I'll be OK, 'cause it was all the same   
I guess our story is ending here   
\-- **_”Hello Love Goodbye” by To Be Juliet's Secret_ **

(2/28/16)

 

* * *

 

 

He hid behind the paper, not wanting her to see him.  It was a shock to his system to see her.  It had been nearly ten years since he had walked away, deciding her maybe was not enough for him.  He had both regretted it and not.  Regretted it because of the way his heart still twinged when he thought of her.  Didn’t because he couldn’t be with someone who saw being with him as some sort of burden.

It was mostly with regret now that he watched her from his spot at the Hartford airport.  She looked beautiful, her hair still long and wavy, dressed in a power suit and ballet flats.  Her eyes lighting up to that perfect shade of blue he had always loved as she watched the small child in front of her amusingly try to drag the bag of gifts towards her grandmother who stood a few feet away.

The regret was starting to fester as he remembered how things had gone in his head that month so long ago.  How many plans he had made, a future where he would be standing right beside her, laughing yet trying to help ease the weight of the bag without the little girl knowing.  Being partners in crime, taking the world by storm and raising their little princess, the next Gilmore Girl.

He had always pictured them with a little girl.  It seemed wrong that they would have son first.  She would probably be named Lorelai, or maybe Emily.  

The little girl in reality looked so much like Rory it was hard to pick out the elements that might belong to the man who got the future Logan so carelessly threw away because it hurt too much.  It was easy to fall into the illusion that his pretend future actually had happened, that he wasn’t here because he had a meeting with his father about the family business he didn’t want.  That he was here picking up his wife and daughter from wherever they had flown from.

That he could walk over there and tell his Ace how much he still very much was in love with her, a decade too late in reality.

When she went to move her hair out of her face, she caught sight of him.  Her blue eyes lost the amusement and instead filled with shock, a brief flash of pain and then nothing.  She was closed off to him, and he wished he could have gone unnoticed.  She motioned to her mother, who was now sitting on the floor helping the little girl unwrap the present.  They said a few words, but Logan was too far to hear.  But soon enough, she was walking towards him.

“Logan,” she greeted, her voice neither frosty nor warm.  LIke she was greeting a neighbor she didn’t know well instead of the man she shared a life with for three years.

“Ace.”  He hadn’t called her that in years. Not even in his head after they broke up.  She had been Rory, always Rory.  

“What are you doing in Hartford?”

“Meeting with my father,” he replied honestly, still seeking any sign that this meeting was as hard on her as it was on him.  Any sign that she still had an ounce of the love they once shared.

God, he was such a sap.

“You are working with him again?”

“No,” he said simply, pausing before deciding to explain.  “Dad wants to retire, and he’s still hoping I’ll return to the fold and take over.”

“Are you?”

“Haven’t decided anything yet, but I’m basically going with no at the moment.”   This conversation seemed so stilted.  Well, that is what you get when you don’t talk for years, even with someone who had seen you at your worst and best. “I’m actually leaving in an hour.”  

“You...should stop by, the next time you're around.”  He blinked in surprise.   He didn’t think she’d be the one to open up an opportunity.  “I still know where to get the best coffee.”

“I remember,” he said with a slight smile, remembering that day at Stars Hollow when he realised he had wanted her with him for the rest of his life.  Before things got so screwed up.  “Wouldn’t your family mind?”

She tilted her head, and he still knew enough about her that she found his comment curious. 

“Why would they?  I mean Mom doesn’t really like you that much right now, but Grandma didn’t stop. “

“No I meant,”  and he pointed in the direction of the little girl. 

“He’s not in our lives right now.”  He blinked at that.  She had said so matter of factly.  As if the man’s non-appearance was just like saying that the sky was blue.  “Besides, you’re an old friend.”   

He didn’t comment with anything right then, knowing what he thought about that wouldn’t be helpful.  Rory didn’t understand her effect on people.  She always hoped break-ups were completely amicable, that friendship was a given.  Except he knew for a fact that the men who fell for Lorelai Leigh Gilmore didn’t really fall out.   He knew that when he had come across Dean Forrester a few years back, the man stopping at the same store at a the airport in Chicago.  He knew that from when he met Jess, back when he wasn’t quite in a place to handle it well.

He knew for a fact that they weren’t friends.  Maybe they could be in the future, but its hard to call someone friend when you haven’t talked for nearly a decade and the last time you really said anything to each other was when exchanging belongings after one of you proposed and got rejected.

After a moment of looking in her eyes and knowing this might be the last chance he had to get her back into his life, whatever they would be to each other he simply smiled.

“I’m coming back in a few weeks,”  he finally said.  “Mom’s birthday is coming up and she wants the whole family there for whatever blowout she’s having.” He paused.  “Honor would love to see you.”  They were still friends.  Honor occasionally gave her updates.  Though why she hadn’t thought to tell him Rory had become a mother, he didn’t know.

“I’ll probably see her later this week.  Emmy and Abby like to play Pretty Princess and your sister likes to let them use the real stuff.”  The laughter in her voice made him smile.  She seemed happy, which was all he could have asked for.  And he knew his sister’s tendency to overdo it with the jewelry.  He wondered how many pieces had to be saved by the housekeeper when the kids lost them.

“You named her after your grandmother.”  She finally sat down beside him, apparently quite happy to talk about her daughter.

“Emily Lorelai Gilmore.”  She looked over her shoulder at her daughter.  “She’s five.”

“She looks like a mini you.  Finn would be pleased to know the genes are still strong.”  He didn’t ask the question he wanted to ask.  Who was he?  How could he have left you and her.  Logan knew he couldn’t really speak on the leaving Rory part, but at least he knew there wasn’t a child involved.  You can leave a partner if the relationship failed.  You don’t leave your kids.

“Her father and I weren’t together very long,” she added as if she could read his mind.  “To be honest, he made Finn look calm and responsible.  I guess I was just enjoying the rebellion.”  She smiled.  “But I figured out pretty early that it wasn’t sustainable.  I was never going to be as relaxed and reckless as him.  I mean, you remember my attempts in college.”  He nodded, smiling as well at the memories.  “I found out I was pregnant a month or so after the break up.  It was pretty easy to get him to sign the papers giving up paternity.  He wasn’t interested and to be honest I didn’t want her to go through what I did.  And my father  _ Was  _ interested.”

“He’s an idiot.”

“Well, I know that. “

“So was I.”

“Logan...”  She started to move away, as if she didn’t want to go near that touchy subject so much she didn’t even want to be physically there.

“I’m sorry.”  That stopped her and she just watched him.  “About then and for bringing it up now.  Especially since we are getting along.”  He wanted to tell her he still loved her, but they weren’t ready for that.  She didn’t respond and the two of them just watched one another for a few minutes.  It was only broken by his flight being called.  He looked away up at the screen to see his gate and grabbed his jacket, paper, and bag.

Standing he looked back down at her.

“So I guess I’ll see you in a few weeks,” she started moving to stand.  “For coffee.”  She added when he looked at her confused.

“I can do coffee.”  He said softly smiling down at her.  “I’ll see you then, Rory.”  Part of him wanted to kiss her but he knew he didn’t have the right to do that, and she wouldn’t be receptive to it, but he as caught off guard when she embraced him. 

“You better,” she said, smiling up at him.  He could tell there was more she wanted to say, but he could understand her not saying it.  He himself had so much he wanted to tell her.

He nodded, released her and started to walk away, turning back every once and awhile to check that he hadn’t imagined the last hour.  Watching her rejoin her mother and daughter, he caught Lorelai’s eye, and the older woman gave him a pointed look.  Surprisingly it wasn’t the hatred he expected.  Almost like she was unsure of his reappearance but she wasn’t against it either.

He finally turned and made his way to his gate, wondering if this was the first step to getting Rory back into his life.  If maybe he had a second chance.


End file.
